Last month, ADEMA released its first single in nearly a decade, “Ready To Die”. The song is taken from the band’s upcoming album, “360 Degrees Of Separation”. In a brand new interview with Michael Nagy of Discoveringbands.com, ADEMA frontman Ryan Shuck (ORGY, JULIEN-K, DEAD BY SUNRISE), who joined the group in 2019, stated about the track: “‘Ready To Die’ took the better part of the last two years to kind of develop. It’s not like we sat down and took two years to write the song, but when I joined the band, we kind of needed to figure out whether or not a) I would work in the band, and it turned out to work; on the first tour, it worked really, really well. And then b) would be what do we sound like and where do we go with me as the singer? So we spent a lot of time just talking, being friends, kind of discussing what makes ADEMA, ADEMA. What is it that is so cool? And me coming in as a fan and a friend, and then now part of the band, I can use that detachment to essentially reinforce to these guys what I think it is. So we kind of spent some time writing. We wrote a bunch of songs — we have probably seven or eight tracks that we [could] play right now, but we wanna be careful with what we let out and when. And we just kind of developed for a while and really focused on where we came from — nu metal, Bakersfield, KORN, all the people that we came up with, the movement that we were part of starting. And as we kind of started working through all that, ‘Ready To Die’ and a couple of other tracks started rising to the top as the most pure ADEMA sound, and I was able to be me on top of it, and it just worked. And from what we can see so far, the fans agree.”
Asked if the other songs on “360 Degrees Of Separation” will be musically as heavy as “Ready To Die”, Ryan said: “It’s a great question because I think we have a lot of fans who probably doubted whether or not we would be good and what it would sound like. And now they’re all kind of going, ‘Oh, fuck. It works. This is awesome.’ I think about half the music is gonna be that heavy, and I think there’s another half of the music that’s gonna be really melodic. ADEMA‘s biggest songs were ‘Giving In’, ‘The Way You Like It’, ‘Immortal’. All those are really melodic songs — they’re not screaming shit. We have both, but whether or not we’re gonna come right out with that stuff remains to be seen. We kind of had the feeling that we wanted to throw some red meat out first and just go, like, ‘Hey, look. We know who we are. We know who you are. We hear you. We get it. And we can prove ourselves to you.’ And then I think we’ll start rolling [out] some of the more melodic stuff. A couple of them are recorded and in the can. So we could release it right now. It’s very hard for us, ’cause we wanna put it out. But you’ve gotta put it out in the right order.”
As for when “360 Degrees Of Separation” might see the light of day, Ryan said: “We’re not shooting to release an album all at once. We’re gonna release singles, and then we’ll release an album with additional tracks on it. So it’ll essentially be us releasing, hopefully every six to eight weeks, a new song and building the brand back up and getting people excited for new stuff happening more, instead of just firing an entire album out with one single and the rest of ’em are just kind of throwaways. We really wanna make every track amazing, and then we’ll wrap it up with the rest of the tracks on all the DSPs and physical album — vinyl, all that kind of stuff, all the special products that go with that.”
When “Ready To Die” was made available in late August, it was described in a press release as “a song about passionately and forcefully breaking free of a toxic relationship or situation. Much like the band’s last 10 years in the proverbial desert, the song embodies perseverance and the idea that we have to be willing to lose everything to do what we love and be true to ourselves.”
“I was at a point where I was absolutely ready to die,” Ryan previously said. “My system for living was not working anymore. I was crushed by the grief of losing one of my closest friends [Chester Bennington] to the same demons. I had been suicidal and severely depressed for years, and had no way out. I was in a living hell. The song is in some ways me dealing with myself in the mirror, but I very much think the concept also applies to anyone that is finally ready to break free from their demons, toxic relationships, or situations. There comes a point where you will go to any length to get better.”
Shuck, a lifelong friend of the band and Bakersfield original, replaced original singer Marky Chavez, who has dropped in and out of the band for years.
Chavez originally left ADEMA in 2004 due to “creative differences” after two successful albums, “Adema” and “Unstable”. The singer — who is the half brother of KORN frontman Jonathan Davis — quit ADEMA again in January 2011 in order to pursue his “solo project.” He rejoined the group again six years later and played his first comeback show with ADEMA in May 2017 at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California.
After Chavez‘s original exit from ADEMA, the other members of the band found their way with new lead singers Luke Caraccioli and later Bobby Reeves, while Mark founded MIDNIGHT PANIC with his cousin Peter Shubert. He also produced fellow artists.
ADEMA‘s last release was 2013’s “Topple The Giants”. The group’s first CD since 2007’s “Kill The Headlights” contained brand new tracks plus re-worked versions of ADEMA‘s chart-topping hits “Giving In” and “Unstable”.
ADEMA is:
Ryan Shuck – Vocals
Tim Fluckey – Guitar
Mike Ransom– Guitar
Dave DeRoo – Bass
Kris Kohls – Drums
